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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

A visit to any Detention Centre or prison should convince Labor to push for a royal commission into detention...

AUSTRALIA/CUBA Federal Labor's new immigration spokesman Tony Burke says after visiting the Baxter detention centre he is now more convinced then ever of the need for a royal commission into immigration detention.

Mr Burke's visit to Baxter yesterday was his first trip there.

He says even the findings of the Palmer inquiry differed to what he was told by detainees at Baxter.

"Everything that we've said about the royal commission and the need for evidence to be taken publicly was right," he said.

"It was spot on and the contradictions that were presented to me ... just confirmed that and secondly a very clear message that these detention centres should not be in private ownership.

"There should be a clear line of command from the minister, through the department to government-run centres."

He says his visit put a human face to the plight of long-term detainees.

"We believe there are better ways and the 90 per cent of cases and the 90 days that I mentioned is one of those," he said.

"But the other thing that you need is huge cultural change and unless the Government is serious about that then we're not going to get the changes on the ground that we need.

"Perhaps the first to get a removal pending visa should be the Minister."

A nurse who cared for the Australian woman wrongly deported to the Philippines, Vivian Alvarez Solon, says Ms Solon suffered serious convulsions a day before she was declared fit to be flown out of Australia.

Filipino-Australian nurse Mayette Mackintosh has said that she informed Immigration guards of Ms Solon's condition and recommended she not board a plane.

"She just starting to have a spasm and really shaking, you know, having some sort of fit," she said.

"I brought it to the attention to the two Immigration officers. They said that they have to inform the Immigration Department about the condition."

The next day, Dr Peter Wynn examined Ms Solon and declared her fit to fly.

He says he was not told of her seizure or her medical history.

"It does, it worries you a little bit. They're withholding information because it would change your approach, possibly send her to hospital that night for evaluation from the neurological department," he said.

"Other things could have been done if that was evident and that obvious."

Former Supreme Court judge Marcus Einfeld, who is advising Ms Solon, says the Immigration Department was in a rush to prove Ms Solon could fly.

"I think this doctor must have been under an enormous amount of pressure from the department to give a favourable report and that's what he did," he said.

Professor Louise Newman from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists says it is not good enough.

"I think after this case all clinicians will be well advised in their dealings with the department," she said.

"I dare say that if this doctor had been aware that Ms [Solon] would be sent to a hospice for the dying, his decision and concerns would have been even greater."

Ms Solon's legal team is currently trying to secure compensation for her wrongful deportation to the Philippines in 2001.

Well your prisons and institutions have all fallen by the wayside so why not have a Royal Commission into prisons and detention centers? Seen as how the punishment appears to be the same even for an alleged terrorist who can be treated like the worst of the worst criminals, regardless if any case has been made against them in a court of law.

The Palmer Inquiry has identified a culture of zealotry as underpinning current Immigration Department (DIMIA) policy and practice.

By Just Us 19 July 05

Related:

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Some people want to remain anonymousThe federal attorney-general has suggested that two women wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department could have avoided being locked up if they had cooperated more with authorities.

'Anna's nightmare' in detention's living hellAustralia: IN his whitewashed report on the detention scandals, government employee Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter detention centre as "Anna's journey".

Detention policy: Change Your MindIt would not be wrong to answer in the affirmative. Another reason is that our political system is adjusting to the highly publicised breaches of human rights via individual cases such as Peter Qasim, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon.

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Australian held in Baxter detention centreIt has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Rau ordeal a raw dealMs Rau spent time in a Queensland prison and a hospital before being handed to immigration authorities who kept her in detention for another four months.

Australian held in Baxter detention centreIt has been revealed an Australian resident has been locked up in Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia for the past four months. Authorities had been unable to establish her identity since she was found wandering in far north Queensland last September.

Lawyers want Baxter detainee released for treatment !Lawyers acting for a hunger-striking detainee inside South Australia's Baxter detention centre have asked the Federal Court to order a psychiatric assessment for the man, saying he needs to be in mental health care, not detention.

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Villawood detainees go on hunger strikeA refugee advocacy group says up to 200 detainees at the Villawood Detention Centre, in Sydney, have begun a hunger strike to draw attention to their situation ahead of the federal election.

Afghan children lose High Court battle against detentionLawyers have lost their constitutional challenge to the detention of four children at a South Australian immigration centre. Four siblings from Afghanistan, aged between seven and 15, have been in detention since they arrived in Australia in 2001.

Don't rock the Boat Howard!PRIME Minister John Howard today denied the children overboard affair had swayed the 2001 election? Mr Howard has spent the week defending himself against claims he had been informed that nobody in Defence believed children had been thrown overboard by asylum seekers.

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